William McGuffey

William McGuffey (1800-1873), an American educator, author, and Presbyterian minister, is best known for creating the McGuffey Readers, the first widely used textbooks in the United States. He had a lifelong interest in teaching children an compiled the first four readers beginning in 1836, while his brother Alexander created the fifth and sixth readers in the 1840s. In 1879 the readers were revised to better portray America as a melting pot of moralities and middle-class values. The McGuffey Readers have been popular for more than 150 years, have sold more than 120 million copies since 1836, and are still in use today.